Climate-Informed Generation Capacity Modeling to Support a Climate Resilient Transition to a Clean Electricity System
This project will use high resolution historical climate projections to generate hourly resource availability profiles for solar, wind, and hydroelectric resources across California and the WECC, and will perform novel analyses of weather and climate
Eagle Rock Analytics, Inc.
Recipient
Sacramento, CA
Recipient Location
8th
Senate District
10th
Assembly District
$364,877
Amount Spent
Active
Project Status
Project Update
This research effort created time-resolved profiles representing availability of hourly solar and wind and weekly hydroelectricy generation resources in a changing climate. The Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) indicated that multiple solar and wind profiles were needed, rather than a single representative solar and a single representative wind technology as originally proposed. This led to the bifurcation of solar resource modeling into industrial and rooftop profiles, and bifurcation of wind resource modeling into onshore and offshore wind profiles. The profiles provide new insights for California’s energy sector to support incorporation of climate change into planning related to achieving renewable energy goals (e.g., SB 100).
While the data were being developed, the team collaborated with other grants (e.g., EPC-21-041) that were performing parallel research to illuminate demand-side impacts of climate change. The grants exchanged information and approaches to support coordinated analyses and knowledge transfer.
Finally, additional TAC meetings were held to share progress and solicit feedback. The TAC included senior staff from institutions involved with regulating, planning, and operating California’s energy system (CAISO, CEC, CPUC, CARB), the research community, non-profit entities, investor-owned utilities, a municipal utility, the Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (LCI), and others. During the final TAC in March 2026, the team presented final results, including the impacts of climate change on resource availability and renewable “droughts”, with attention to uncertainty associated with multiple plausible climate futures.
The Draft Final Report has been submitted to CEC and is expected to be published in 2026 after review by agency staff in tandem with a peer review process funded by LCI as part of California’s Fifth Climate Change Assessment.
The Issue
California’s energy decarbonization goals are both driven and complicated by the impacts of climate change. A warming climate will shift the geographic distribution and timing—both seasonal and daily—of zero‑carbon energy resources, while also placing new stresses on the grid as extreme weather events become more frequent and severe. To ensure the development of a reliable and cost‑effective electricity system, better insights into how zero‑carbon generation will perform under a more variable and extreme future climate are needed.
Project Innovation
The project team used high‑resolution climate projections to generate hourly availability profiles for solar and wind resources, and weekly profiles for hydroelectric resources, across California and the broader WECC region. These time‑resolved profiles formed the foundation for new analyses of how weather and climate extremes affect zero‑carbon generation capacity, including stresses from compound and cascading events. This work offers valuable insight into the temporal and spatial variability of generation resources and the implications for building a reliable, decarbonized grid in California.
Rapid sharing of results with stakeholders—and close coordination with other EPIC‑funded research teams—was made possible by leveraging the Cal‑Adapt: Analytics Engine. Each phase of the project has been shaped by extensive engagement with external partners, including research collaborators, regulators, and policymakers (e.g., SB 100 team, CEC‑EAD, CEC‑DFO, CAISO, CPUC, OPR), as well as IOUs. The team’s flexible management approach has enabled timely responses to stakeholder needs and the creation of actionable, user‑focused data products that support climate‑informed planning for a zero‑carbon electricity grid and advance California’s ambitious climate goals.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
A zero-carbon electricity grid will require understanding how solar, wind and hydroelectric resources shift geographically and across a range of temporal scales (diurnal, seasonal, interannual). California’s transition to a zero-carbon grid will require significant investment in transmission upgrades, wind generation, solar generation, and storage. By characterizing future climate variability and extremes, and their spatial and temporal impacts to zero-carbon generation resources, this project will facilitate climate-informed, cost-effective deployment of generation capacity in a manner that is strategic with regard to reliability issues and avoids unnecessary investment of ratepayer funds.
Affordability
By identifying how future climate variability and extremes will affect energy resources across time and geography, this project supports climate‑informed, cost‑effective grid planning—ultimately helping to reduce electricity costs for ratepayers.
Reliability
This work strengthens grid reliability by providing climate‑informed projections of future renewable energy availability, enabling better planning to prevent power disruptions and ensure a resilient zero‑carbon electricity system.
Key Project Members
Dr. Owen Doherty
Subrecipients
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Kit Batten Consulting
Naomi Goldenson (to be replaced -- noted Fall 2023)
David Yates
Match Partners
Eagle Rock Analytics, Inc.
